Chapter 2: Unconditional love/children are the future of the world.

“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life”, - Steve Jobs.

We tend to mistake “love” for “lust”, “attachment” and at worst “clinginess”. As a young child, I used to ask my parents, “Why don’t you love me?” (in my mind, of course). This happens to a lot of Asian families because it is not in our culture to be open and expressive about feelings. We tend to bury things deep inside and observe life instead of asserting things. I suppose it is because we had to learn quickly that if you are too vocal, it could be deemed as a sign of weakness and more prone to “attacks”, personally and professionally. Observing our politicians, who have been rather emotionless in every single speech, that is my best assumption. Please do not get me wrong, I am not saying anything is better or worse than another, I am merely stating my observation. Life is life. Many people go through life thinking that we can control it but I suspect the exact opposite is more likely. In me saying, “Why don’t you love me?” effectively, I was stating that I could not feel love, in any form. How arrogant, right?

I never learned physics at school, but I was taught about Energy Conversion, “While energy can be transferred or transformed, the total amount of energy does not change – this is called energy conversion”. So how does this seemingly boring subject relate to love? In Taoism, we talk a lot about the intention (ie. energy), like a mother or a father’s intention for a child. This is going to be very out there, but who cares (*shrugs), let me ask you a question and please answer honestly: “Do you believe in a supernatural force? Some call it God, some Buddha and in the greatest (to me) TV show ever created StarTrek, they call it “The Force”?” (Now you are thinking, “what sort of a cult have I got myself into reading?”. Bear with me please! You will understand in a second!)

Why do I mention this? Don’t you think it is so strange that regardless of where a group of individuals is on Earth, we always look for something greater than ourselves? Scientists cannot tell us why humans have consciousness or why we can make choices/decisions for ourselves, but animals cannot. Yet, we evolved from apes (At least I have not read any theory about why – if you have, please cure my ignorance!). Have you ever had experiences where “love” may not be provided in the form you expect but elsewhere in your life, others “lookout” for you? Look deeper, you will see. We are all connected as part of a bigger “Family”!

If love is an intention, there is indeed a God/Buddha/The Force that loves us, wouldn’t it mean every person on Earth is born with the same amount of “love” so that we can live, prosper, and strive to be the best we can be (regardless of race, religion, whether we “believe” or not)? Yet whether we choose to “see”, to become our best selves (or not) is entirely up to us! Isn’t it interesting? Destiny and the power of choice can exist both at the same time – now we have a paradox! A bit of a mind twist I understand, let me share my life story:

It was roughly about the age of 3 or 4, I nearly drowned in the ocean. It was a family trip, and we had a lot of fun. However, that experience impressed a fear of water in me until now. It was either David Humes or Descartes who mentioned that things in the world impressed upon a person’s mind and change his/her perspective. It is true but impression gets interpreted by each person differently, dependent on the lenses of how he/she views the World. Say, if I were a more upbeat, positive child, I might have decided to dedicate myself to learn swimming and might have become an athlete. But I did not (Lead me to a path).

I also received scholarships for ballet dancing and could have become a ballerina, but I did not (Lead me to a path).

It all comes down to the choices and life path that one decides, regardless of age (regardless of whether we chose or let others chose for us). Since the day we were born, the onus has been on every one of us how we choose to interpret the World, whether we know about it or not because in the end, no one is going to take responsibility for our lives but us. Additionally, we cannot take responsibility for the actions of others.

So there, if I had insisted on being a swimmer or a ballerina as my career choice in life, I would not be here writing this chapter and would not be feeling as though I have just won a lottery ticket to moving further into discovering more about myself. Many would call me insane as at 30, most people would have settled down, enjoyed having a husband/wife and kids of their own if they had married earlier in life. I must be extremely honest with you, I don’t know why I chose this path (it feels right but very difficult!). However, I am sure I will find out why in the future if I am honest with myself (this is faith – so hard to follow which is why in a song, “When you believe”, popularized by Mariah Carey, it says, “… hope seems like a summer bird, too swiftly flown away” – yes, I look for meanings in movies and songs!). Unconditional love – the intention for one to find their passion and reach their best in life. No?

I am doing my master’s degree with the University of the People and they are a great, amazing group of individuals and God bless them, they are making it possible for individuals like me reaching towards a goal that used to be impossible to achieve without spending a “bucket” load of money. I am on my second week there, the first semester and we are talking about “Positive Discipline” from Nelsen & Gfroer (2017). I love it but hear me out for a moment, please. Positivity is a part of life, not the whole of life. Positive Discipline concept, like its name, focuses on the “positive side” of society and demonstrates a very democratic environment where children get to explore themselves and get things explained, understood. But this is rarely the case. Additionally, my experience has been the exact opposite, it was the “negativity” in my life (so to speak) that sparked the anger, resentment which then translates into motivation then inner empowerment (a concept that Barbara Coloroso talked about) to seek out what it is we are so passionate in doing in life/ our reason for being. “When we hit our lowest point (actual or perceived), we are open to the greatest change”, this is a great quote from “The Legend of Korra” anime (I am a huge nerd ??). Positivity has its time and place, just like a business cycle, to have “peaks” you need “troughs”!

Having mentioned that, I do not mean traumatized experiences are great. It has a devastating consequence where most people overshoot and compensate for the “perceived” lacking in “love/belonging/care” too much with one of the three things or simultaneously all three: 1. money, 2. power, and 3. fame (these are not bad, it is just how one uses these means to contribute towards society).

Coming back to traumatic experiences, what traumatized a person is an emotional attachment to events, especially when that event happened early on in life when you have no “clutches” or “frameworks” to understand what went on. Therefore, one could “hold on” to this pain for their whole life. For example, I was “disciplined” a lot as a child. In Asia, we lag in terms of educational “management” techniques and the only way a mother or a father knows how to discipline a child was to give a “good beating” (or how we call it “tough love” in Asia ??), potentially name-calling as well ??. Traumatic events have the potential of being suppressed so deep into a persons’ subconscious mind that he/she does not even know it exists (that is why it is called “subconsciousness”). I can tell you this because I suppressed mine for 30 years without knowing what I held on to until very recently, which I will touch on in more details in later chapters.

“I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we’re not wise enough to see it”, Oprah Winfrey.

There is a secret I will let you in, this is something I could not unravel for such a long time. Have you ever had an experience in your life so early on that you have no idea why it sticks but it does? For me, it was the time when I sat at the back seat of my parent’s motorcycle and saw a sign that says, “Tr? em là t??ng lai c?a ??t n??c”, loosely translated: “Children are the future of the Nation”.

I never knew why it stuck. Because I love kids? It could be. I do love to have a family of my own. “Children are the future of the World” because children carry a sense of wonder, children ask questions, children like to have fun, explore things, children are cups half full and they expect nothing out of life – which is why they will get everything in life (sort of like potentials of a child). But this is also true for any adult with a child-like mind!

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” – Albert Einstein.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its reason for existing”. – Albert Einstein.